Finance & economics | The octogenarian radical

What four more years of Joe Biden would mean for America’s economy

Bigger government, for a start

A drawing of Joe Biden driving a digger with a purse for a shovel, from which some coins are tumbling.
Illustration: Olivier Heiligers
|Washington, DC

Joe Biden’s opponents focus on his age as something that makes him doddering, confused and ultimately unfit for office. So the great paradox of the 81-year-old’s first term is that he has presided over perhaps the most energetic American government in nearly half a century. He unleashed a surge in spending that briefly slashed the childhood poverty rate in half. He breathed life into a beleaguered union movement. And he produced an industrial policy that aims to reshape the American economy.

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This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “The octogenarian radical”

From the February 3rd 2024 edition

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